A hockey goal-frame includes a bottom-pipe, which rests on the ice, and to which the net is secured. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,344 (Meggs, 1986), impact-bags may be tied to the bottom-pipe. The impact-bags have been stuffed with a soft impact-deadening material. One of the problems is that the bag material is not watertight, and water entering the bag freezes and sticks to the ice; when pulled free, the bag material can become torn, which allows the stuffing material to spill out. Furthermore, hockey goalframes are usually stored in equipment rooms away from the ice surface, and the goalframes have to be dragged over a concrete floor, which can abrade the bag material. The stuffing is usually in the form of grains or pellets of various impact-absorbing materials, which may be difficult to deal with if they spill out onto the ice. It has been conventional for impact-bags to have to be replaced e.g each season.
Also, with the conventional impact-bags, the impact-absorbing properties are not perfect, in that as many as say twenty percent of pucks that strike the bottom-pipe (i.e strike the bag lying in front of the bottom-pipe) do in fact bounce and rebound enough to end up outside the goal-line.
The problem with bounce-out is not so much where it is clear to the goal-judge or the participants that the puck has hit the bottom-pipe and bounced out; the problem is that some participants, knowing that bounce-out is possible, may be disposed to allege that it has happened in cases where it is not so clear.
It used to be conventional for the bottom-pipes of goalframes to be in the shape of the number-3. When the bottom-pipe is straight (as is now more usually the case), it is the pucks that are shot from directly in front that tend to bounce out; the 3-shape deflected the in-front puck to left or right, which was effective to cause the puck to be retained. However, the 3-shape was dangerous in that a player sliding into the goal might strike the point in the middle of the 3-shape, and be injured.
Instead of the impact-bags made of fabric, puck deflectors made of metal have been used. However, again, hockey goals are dragged over concrete, and it could happen that the edge of the metal deflector became sharpened to a knife edge; if the edge were knocked upwards when a player crashed into the goal, it could cause injury.
The metal puck-deflectors worked by deflecting the puck upwards, whereupon the puck could be caught by the net. However, a metal deflector has little capacity to deaden or absorb impacts.
It is also known to provide a protective skirt on the outside of the net. The skirt fits to or around the bottom-pipe, and extends a few inches up the net. The purpose of the skirt is to protect the lowermost meshes of the net from being cut by skate blades, and otherwise damaged.
It is an aim of the invention to provide a puck-deflector for a hockey goal, which is capable of preventing bounce-back of the puck back over the goal-line in respect of a much larger percentage of shots than has been the case hitherto; which poses little risk of injury to players crashing into the net; and which is inexpensive, and can be expected to have a long and trouble-free service life.